This invention relates to improvements in a hall information system for a group-supervisory elevator wherein destination buttons for registering destination floors are disposed in halls.
Usually, an elevator is so constructed that a hall call is registered with an up button or a down button disposed in a hall and that a cage is called to the hall in accordance with the hall call. In addition, the hall is furnished with a hall lantern (hereinbelow, termed `HL`) and a chime for each cage. When a cage is assigned to serve the registered hall call the HL is lit up and the chime is rung in a single tone to notify the users waiting in the hall. When the cage arrives at the hall, the HL is flashed and the chime is rung in a multiple tone for reporting the arrival of the cage and the traveling direction thereof. The users then get into the arriving cage and register cage calls with a destination button disposed in the cage. In this manner, in the conventional elevator, the call buttons need to be manipulated in the hall and the cage respectively.
Meanwhile, as disclosed in Japanese Utility Model Registration Application Publication No. 53-40843 by way of example, a system has recently been proposed wherein destination buttons similar to those in cages are disposed in a hall commonly for the respective cages and wherein destination floor display units are disposed in the hall for the respective cages. With this system, when waiting users have manipulated the hall destination buttons to register calls for destination floors, the cages are assigned to the respective destination calls, and the floors of the allotted destination calls are displayed on the destination floor display units, thereby to report the assigned cages to the waiting users who have depressed the hall destination buttons and also to inform the other waiting users of the destination floors of the respective cages. In this case, as soon as the destination call has been allotted, it is automatically registered as the cage call of the assigned cage, and hence, the user or passenger can dispense with the trouble of depressing the destination button in the cage. Moreover, the system is very convenient because it eliminates the drawback of having to depress the destination button when the cage is very crowded.
The destination floor display units described above, however, are too expensive when they are disposed in the respective floors and for the respective cages, and pose a problem in practical use.
As disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 60-31484, therefore, it has been devised that a hall is furnished with only up and down HL's and chimes without disposing destination floor display units and that registered destination calls are classified in an up direction and a down direction into a group of up calls and a group of down calls, to each of which one cage is assigned. Likewise to the conventional case where the up button and the down button are disposed, the HL of the assigned cage is lit up and the chime thereof is rung, thereby to inform waiting users of the service cage in advance, and when the assigned cage has arrived, the group of destination calls is collectively registered as cage calls. Since, in this case, cages are not assigned to the respective destination calls, the display of destination floors is unnecessary, and the waiting users can be informed of the cage in which they are to use, namely, the cage in which the cage calls of the desired floors of the users are to be automatically registered, by the lighting of the HL and the ringing of the chime before the arrival of the cage.
However, in a case where the first waiting user has already registered the up call or down call and where the cage has been assigned thereto to serve a group of destination floors including the destination floor requested by a second user, the information display remains unchanged, and the second waiting user is uncertain whether the assigned cage will serve his/her requested destination floor, and, as a result, the second user feels anxiety as to the stoppage of the cage at his/her requested destination floor until he/she actually registers a cage call.